


A Day of Disarray

by BambiRex



Series: Garden Lodge Family Shenanigans [9]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Babysitting, Chaos, F/F, Fluff, Genderbending, fem!queen, garden lodge family shenanigans, it's look after your friend and boss's kids day, king!au, this is more pre-slash because they are not actually together but there's some pining so, we have to accept that, we love both layla and gabriel but they are both little shits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27816226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BambiRex/pseuds/BambiRex
Summary: How hard could it be to look after a three, and a seven years old kid?
Relationships: Joe Fanelli & Peter "Phoebe" Freestone, Joe Fanelli/Peter "Phoebe" Freestone
Series: Garden Lodge Family Shenanigans [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767487
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	A Day of Disarray

**Author's Note:**

> I so rarely update this series, I apologize! Here's some ridiculous mess to make up for it. I feel like we often don't focus enough on the other members of the Garden Lodge fam, so I wanted to give them some more love! This could be read as pre-slash or platonic, your choice.

How hard could it be to look after a three, and a seven years old kid? Didn’t sound like Mission Impossible, surely. Children were lovely; sure, they could be quite chaotic, but most of the time, they were a joy to be around. They were much smarter than most people gave them credit for, their little minds were still open and accepting. They were sweet. Layla, and Gabriel especially were. There was no need to worry.

God, how wrong they were.

Most of the time, Freddie and Jane were home with the kids. If Freddie was needed at the studio, Jane could stick around. If Jane had something to do, Freddie was home. The longest they were out was about a three hour streak, nothing their trustworthy friends couldn’t handle. This was the first occasion they had to be away for a whole day, but both Phoebe and Jenny were certain it would go well. Both of the kids loved and listened to them; Phoebe had a natural motherly streak, and Jenny was always fun to spend time with.

Smooth ride.

These predicaments were questioned quite early on, basically immediately after Freddie and Jane left. Gabriel sat down in front of the door, and refused to get up. Which was, well. He was a three years old kid. That was normal, right?

‘’Come on, now. We don’t want you to catch a cold, do we?” Phoebe cooed as she crouched down next to him. Gabriel didn’t even look at her, his blue eyes were plastered on the door.

‘’Mama?” He asked, lower lip wobbling. ‘’Mummy?” Oh. If there was one thing that could break Phoebe’s heart- amongst many other things, like a certain someone not returning her feelings-, it was a crying child, begging for his parents.

‘’Sweetheart,” she said softly, stroking a gentle hand through his curls, ‘’it’s okay. They will be back before you know it.”

‘’You can spend a whole day with your sister and your Aunts!” Jenny tried with a grin, opening her arms for a hug that didn’t excite Gabriel in the slightest. ‘’Isn’t that fun?”

Gabriel finally tore his eyes away from the door to glare at Jenny. Just when Jenny was about to feel triumphant, he started sobbing, desperate tears streaming down his face.

‘’Thanks, Jenny.” Phoebe huffed. Jenny held her hands up in defense.

‘’I was just trying to help!”

‘’You upset him!”

‘’With what, exactly?”

Phoebe didn’t reply, just wrapped her arms around Gabriel. The little boy didn’t fight her off, but he continued crying into her chest. On one hand, Jenny felt a little jealous for Gabriel choosing Phoebe’s hug over hers, but she couldn’t quite get mad when the sight was so precious.

Layla poked her head out of the living room with a questioning look. When she spotted her crying brother, she rushed to his side and gently pulled him out of Phoebe’s embrace, clutching him closer to her instead.

‘’Don’t be afraid, Mama and Mummy will be back soon.” Layla promised. What Phoebe and Jenny couldn’t achieve, Layla could, right away. As soon as the soothing words- the same ones his Aunts tried, futilely- left her mouth, Gabriel’s tears stopped, and he even smiled at his sister.

‘’Alright.” Jenny said with a relieved smile, rising back to her feet. She peered down at Phoebe who was still on the floor. She reached her hand out with a questioning look, hoping the blush wasn’t obvious on her face. Phoebe stared at her hand for a few seconds before she let out a soft sound, shyly taking it.

‘’Thanks.” She whispered after Jenny pulled her up, avoiding her eyes.

‘’Aunties?” Layla questioned, hands propped on her hips. She looked a bit impatient, an arm around Gabriel’s shoulder. ‘’Can we watch cartoons?”

‘’Yeah, yeah. Sure.” Jenny replied, gently ushering them back into the living room. She turned the TV on, feeling calm and relieved when the kids cuddled up on the couch, tantrums and crying waned. 

‘’We’re gonna handle this, right?” Phoebe asked. There was a bit of uncertainty in her voice, but she was smiling. Jenny nodded, straightening her back confidently.

‘’Of course. We’re done with the worst!”

\--

As it turns out, they weren’t done with the worst, at all.

Next problem came during lunch. After the food was served, both kids just stared at their plates with a frown that was incredibly similar to Freddie’s when she was served something she didn’t like, and Jenny took a mental note to smack her for teaching it to her kids. If there was something that pissed her off to no end, is when people pulled faces over the food she meticulously prepared- even if said people were just tiny children.

‘’Is something wrong?” She asked, trying and failing to hit a gentle tone. How the Hell did Phoebe do it? She could sweet-talk her way through the Apocalypse. 

Layla let out a long-suffering sigh, shaking her head. She looked utterly disappointed.

‘’What is this?” She asked, poking at her pasta with her fork. She eyed the meal as if it was some sort of disgusting, slimy creature. Jenny’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline.

‘’What do you mean, what is this? It’s mac and cheese. Your favorite.”

Layla continued pushing it around her plate. She didn’t look pleased in the slightest.

‘’Maybe it’s not my favorite anymore.” She huffed. ‘’There’s too much cheese on it.”

‘’But… cheese is good!” Phoebe tried, laying a placating hand on Jenny’s arm when the offended chef drew in a sharp breath. She knew Jenny wouldn’t yell at the kids, but her head exploding was still a probable outcome. ‘’The more cheese, the merrier…! Gabriel, what are you doing?”

While Layla was still playing spoiled Princess over her plate, Gabriel started shoveling it in- with his hands. Melted cheese and pasta dropped everywhere, soiling the kitchen tiles that Phoebe cleaned only a day prior. Seeing the shiny floor covered in the gooey mess, Phoebe felt like someone just shot her in the chest.

‘’No, honey, use your utensils!”

‘’No.” Gabriel said simply, and was that a smug grin on his face?

Jenny sighed. She felt a headache coming on. The kids were usually so well-behaved, but it seemed like they decided to be extra difficult exactly on the day only her and Phoebe were around. Lord, she needed a raise.

She grabbed Gabriel’s fork and gathered some pasta with it, raising it to his lips with a look that she aimed to be hopeful, but it was probably just desperate. Gabriel seemed very amused by her tries.  
Jenny felt eyes on her, and when she turned her head, she met Phoebe’s fond gaze. Well, at least someone appreciated her efforts. And hey, she was making progress, wasn’t she? Gabriel stopped cramming his hands into his food, after all. She couldn’t resist giving Phoebe a wink, who laughed softly, her cheeks going delightfully pink.

The pink bubble was burst very quickly as Gabriel flicked the fork, causing it to smack backwards and catapulting the pasta onto Jenny’s face. Layla practically shrieked with laughter, giving her brother a high-five.

‘’Hey! This wasn’t nice!” Phoebe scolded them, shaking her head. She was usually soft, but she could be strict if she really wanted. The kids stopped laughing, guilt seeping into their eyes.

Jenny was a bit of a funny sight with cheese dripping down her glasses, but Phoebe made an effort not to laugh to spare her feelings, and also to make sure the kids understood this was a bad thing to do.

‘’Apologize to Aunt Jenny, Gabriel. You too, Layla.”

‘’We’re sorry.” The kids echoed, to Phoebe’s biggest pride. Jenny sighed, wiping at her face.

‘’Apology accepted. I guess.”

Phoebe only dared to laugh after the kids left the kitchen, causing Jenny to smack her with a washcloth.

\--  
Freddie was going to kill them. Not the kids, she couldn’t get mad at them. No, she will kill her friends.

They took their eyes off them for one second. Okay, maybe it was two. But the damage was already done.

How they ended up inside the closet, was a mystery. One second, they were playing with the cats, not causing any more trouble than necessary-and in the next, they started trying on Freddie’s clothes, one by one.

It would have been endearing, even, if they didn’t end up fighting over a yellow blouse. Phoebe tried to step in, but it was too late. The loud tearing sound was deafening in the room- even the cats perked their heads up. Phoebe’s entire life flashed before her eyes, imagining the various way Freddie could murder her for letting the kids’ playfight escalate and ending up tearing her favorite blouse.

‘’Oh, God. We are dead.” Jenny sighed. At least the kids immediately realized their mistake, because they shrunk, holding the pieces with a guilty look.

‘’We are sorry.” Gabriel whispered, wringing his small hands. Layla had her eyes on the floor, blinking back distressed tears.

‘’Is there any way to fix it?” She pleaded. Phoebe eyed the damage. They basically tore the top in half, but maybe she could put it together.

‘’I’ll try.” She sighed, taking the ruined clothing into her hands. ‘’You can’t play inside here again, alright? You’re going to upset your Mummy. You wouldn’t like it if Mummy went into your room and started cutting up your clothes, right?”

They shook their heads in unison. They knew right well just how upset Freddie would be, so they decided to avoid the closet for the foreseeable future.

They spent the rest of the afternoon playing more quietly, careful not to tear or break anything. Phoebe sewed the blouse up as much as she could. If she was lucky, Freddie won’t notice anything, and maybe her head can stay on her neck.

\--  
Jenny wasn’t all that bad at Math, but Lord, she barely remembered anything. Why were they making kids solve so complex tasks in the first grade!? It didn’t make any sense.

‘’Okay, so. I think we should get a calculator.”

‘’We can’t use that!” Layla yelled, her voice so full of panic that Jenny flinched back. What the Hell were they doing to kids to scare them like that? ‘’The teacher told us not to use it, because then we will never learn how to count!”

Okay, that was fair enough. But they weren’t even dealing with whole numbers here-why did they expect them to solve it by nothing but sheer brain power?

‘’Well…your teacher’s not here.” Jenny reasoned. Layla gasped, and smacked her arm with all the power of an offended seven years old.

‘’You’re being a bad example, Aunt Jenny!”

This was fair, too. Jenny sighed. It was probably better if she gave in. Nothing was more embarrassing that getting your ass handed to you in the moral sense by a child.

The homework took a little longer than expected, but they managed to do it all. Besides, at least Layla was now tired enough not to cause more chaos.

\--

There were only more minor hang-ups from then on, like Gabriel tripping on the rug and treating it as a deadly accident, wailing so hard that the cats hid under the couch in fear. Luckily, nothing dangerous happened, and the kids went to bed early after their active day.

‘’I might change my mind about having kids.” Phoebe chuckled, stretching out on the couch. Jenny raised an eyebrow.

‘’You want kids?”

‘’Maybe someday. Just waiting for the right person.” Phoebe replied. She blushed at the look that Jenny gave her.

‘’That’s nice.” Was all that Jenny said, a little smile tugging at her lips.

They passed out on the couch. When Freddie and Jane arrived home, they found the kids sleeping soundly in their rooms, everything squeaky clean and Phoebe and Jenny spooning on the couch, completely dead to the world.

Heaven knows they deserved it after what they went through.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have a certain scenario that you would like me to turn into a fic for the series, you can suggest it here in the comments or on my tumblr, bambirexwrites, and I'll add it to the list! :))


End file.
